Beautiful, amazing, breathtaking...just three of the words that were gasped by the captivated audience watching Rambert in Nottingham.

The national company for contemporary dance wowed a packed Theatre Royal with a superb three-pronged programme of works from it’s extensive repertoire.

I’m told the key to appreciating dance is to try and understand the emotions expressed and for me there was emotion in abundance in these three stunning, but very different performances.

Rambert has never sounded quite like this before as this time for it first instalment - Dark Arteries – the dancers were joined live on stage by a full brass band. Featuring music to lift hairs on the back of the neck, this powerful display inspired by the miners’ strike was about energies and shifts in dynamics,

It’s a dance which draws you in with a series of crescendos peaking in the middle and dying away to something hymn-like at the end.

Split by two 20-minute intervals, the triple bill performance was condensed into just over two hours, which was about right for the keen midweek theatre-goers.

Next up was The 3 Dancers, a true story of love, desire and betrayal inspired by the famous Picasso painting, brought to the stage with some impressive cubist imagery and dynamic choreography.

The finale Frames was my favourite as performers skilfully manipulated interlocking metal bars to form shapes, structures and spaces to help frame the dancing in different lighting.

As the night came to an end, the roof was raised with rapturous applause - and quite rightly too.